#anaria

"You're lucky."

Anaria, chained to the wall, laughed. It was a dry, sarcastic sound. "Am I?"

Her wings were spread behind her, held there by rope. She wished she could pull them into herself, remembering too well the time the man in front of her had sliced off her feathers. But no - now, she was exposed and vulnerable.

Hakur stepped up to one adjacent wall, put the torch he was holding in a sconce. It was too bright for Anaria's eyes after being left down here for so long. She wondered if it was the same cell she'd been put in the first time. There was a blood stain on the stone floor.

"Yes, Anaria, you are."

His voice was smooth and rich... and she hated it. She wanted him to shut up and leave her be, let her go, do anything but come closer to her.

But, come closer he did. He ran a hand almost reverently over her right wing, and she flinched and growled. She wished she could turn his organs to fire, see him squirm as he was burned from the inside out. Her magic, however, was blocked by the collar around her neck. She hated that damn collar.

"Did you know that the magic of the Nessari isn't attached to the wings like they think?" He continued speaking as he pet her wing, as if his touch wasn't bothering her.

"And how would you know that?" Anaria snarled. She was scared though, terrified out of her mind. This man had hurt her, and now here she was in his clutches once again. She was traumatized by him. Everything in her was shriveling into a ball as if it was going to die, but she couldn't show any of that. No, she would show anger instead.

Anaria continued speaking before Hakur could answer her question. "Bet you cut off a Nessari's wings and just watched them suffer."

Hakur chuckled, shook his head. "If only." He lowered his hand from her wing, turned his back, folded his hands behind him.

"What do you mean?"

The torch on the wall suddenly flared, flared so tall that the flames roared and reached the ceiling. It spread, closer and closer, but did not touch Hakur, or even Anaria. It filled the whole room with terrible heat that made her skin tingle and sting.

Then in an instant it was gone, over, the torch back to its normal bearing on the wall, the flames flickering there as if nothing had happened to it. Anaria was gasping for breath, and realization punched her in the gut.

"Y-you..."

"Yes, Anaria." Hakur turned to face her. "I am Nessari."

"But... how?" Anaria didn't even know where to begin asking questions. Why was he revealing this to her? Why had he never used his magic until now? Had he been hiding it from her just for this grand reveal, this explanation? "You could have used your magic a million times with me, and yet you didn't. Why?" Sweat dripped down the side of her face, onto her eyebrow, and she had to blink it out of her eye.

"You see, princess, many people don't like us Nessari. They loathe the royal family especially."

"You mean like you?"

"Princess, they would see you dead."

Anaria wanted to say she wished that he would kill her, but then she thought of her father, Hali, Girad. She'd never see any of them again if he did. She would die here in this miserable dungeon away from the ones she loved. And it would be a betrayal from a fellow Nessari.

"I was... raised, in a sort of way, by humans," Hakur said. He'd circled around to her other side, was now stroking her left wing. Anaria tried her best to move it away, to flutter it, to pull on the ropes, but all the movement and struggle did nothing but strain her muscles. "After they removed my wings, that is."

"Removed your wings?" She was so startled by this. She'd heard of poorer Nessari having their wings brutally cut off by humans, but Hakur wasn't poor. He had a castle, status, an army. How had this happened to him?

"Yes," he said. He suddenly clutched Anaria's wing by the base quite fiercely, making her give a sudden cry of fear. "Took a bone saw and cut right here. Didn't care about how I screamed or begged. They seemed to relish the blood, almost."

"Why?" She was trembling, frightened that he was going to do the same thing to her. She wasn't going to lie to herself: she cherished her wings. She couldn't lose them, especially not as the Nessari's princess. Dear gods, what was he going to do?

"There was a plot," he said, loosening his grip to stroke her feathers once more. "A plot to get rid of the royal family. It didn't work, of course, given that you're here. It went wrong. So wrong."

"What are you talking about?" Something fluttered in her gut, a sense of dread.

"Did your father, Sol, ever tell you about his brother?"

"I don't have an uncle!" she snapped. "I'm pretty sure I would have known that if I did."

"Oh, but your father is tricky, you see," Hakur said. He let go of her wing to step up to face her. He clicked his tongue at her. "Always hiding something."

"No," she said, in complete denial of what Hakur was telling her - because, really, she did know what he was saying, but she didn't want to believe it. She couldn't believe it. "He's not like that. He's... he's better than that."

"Then why did Sol never tell you about his older brother?" Hakur asked. There was a cruel smile on his lips. And now, Anaria recognized those lips, his cheekbones, his nose. She hadn't before. Before, it was like she'd been blind. She knew all those facial features because they resembled her father's... her own. "His older brother who was stolen from the castle in the dead of night and never seen again?"

"Does he know?" Anaria asked. Gods, she felt like she was going to be sick. She turned her head away, swallowed back bile.

"That I'm still alive?" Hakur clarified. "No. He does not."

"So... so what happened to you?" She still wasn't looking at him.

"The humans took me far away," Hakur said. "By ship. I was sold at the slave markets of Esken. The person who sold me... he had me chained by hand and foot and cut off my wings."

"And what of him?" Anaria asked. Her father was old, much older than her. He was in his early hundreds. Hakur had to be older.

"I killed him once I escaped," Hakur said. "But, a Nessari cannot grow back their wings." He sighed sadly. "No matter how hard they try."

Hakur turned, to walk away, leave the cell. He was taking the torch with him, though now Anaria knew he didn't need it. Perhaps, during his slavery, he'd gotten used to not using magic.

She felt like she had to say something. She was never going to accept Hakur as a family member, not after what he'd done to her, not after all his atrocities. But she had to say something.

"I'm sorry," she called out to him. "I'm sorry they did that to you."

Hakur stopped, went rigid, seeming to be surprised. His back was to her, a back that had once bore wings. She couldn't help but wonder what colors they had been.

He turned his head slightly towards her. "Are you, princess?"

"Yes."

"No. You're not."

Anaria wasn't going to deign to argue with him. There was no point. She really did feel sorry though, sorry that he'd been uprooted from his family, that he'd suffered so much, that he was now wingless.

Hakur left the cell, and she could see his eyes glittering through the grate in the iron door.

"But you will be," he said.

Anaria wanted to scream as he left, just scream until she ripped out her own voice. So Hakur was going to hurt her for reasons she couldn't understand. He wanted people to understand his pain, but he was going about it all the wrong way. He was inflicting pain instead.